


All the World is Dark Without Her

by lodessa



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Unrequited Love, teenage emo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-08
Updated: 2007-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:23:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically I was fascinated by the idea of Littlefinger as he was as a teenager, dramatic and foolhardy, feeling like the world would end if he didn't get what he wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the World is Dark Without Her

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sophiahelix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiahelix/gifts).



Riverrun is bustling with activity. The Starks are coming to visit. Everyone is talking about how it is a very important visit because Lord Tully plans to solidify an allegiance with them. It is all anyone is talking about. They say there’s a marriage in the works. 

Petyr doesn’t want to hear any more.

On the day that the Northerners are to arrive, they are all sitting in the library because it has the best view of the road. Lysa keeps finding excuses to disturb his reading with pointless questions and comments. Petyr looks past her to Cat, who looks a little pale. He does not like it. 

Lysa is called downstairs to her father. She has always been Hoster’s favorite.

Petyr asks Edmure to go fetch some apples from the kitchen. The boy is yet young and eager to please.

“Cat?” His voice is gentle as he crosses to her, movements graceful and fluid so as not to startle.

“What is it Petyr?”

Her hair is like flames licking down her back, such a sharp contrast to her ivory skin… all the more pronounced today. Petyr wants to weave his fingers in it and pull her close like the hero of some tragic ballad. She is deaf to his poetry though, so he must try a more subtle approach.

“You look pale today. What is it that is troubling you, my dearest most beautiful maiden?”

She smiles weakly as his fingertips brush her face.

“I’m fine Petyr, really. I’m just a little nervous with the Starks coming and all. This meeting is so very important to father and it could determine my whole future.”

Hearing the rumors confirmed by her own lips is bitter and Petyr wishes violently that the Stark lordling and his Cat despise each other. He has not met Brandon or Eddard but already he hates them. He must bite his tongue though and bide his time.

“You worry too much, Cat. How could anyone who sees you fail to worship you?”

“You are a silver tongued devil, Petyr, but I know you cannot truly be so naïve.”

“I’ve told you before and I’ll say it again. You are the most perfect woman I’ve ever beheld and I adore you fervently and with complete devotion. Your favor would make me the happiest man in this world. Your censure casts a continual storm over my existence.”

“Petyr stop exaggerating. Besides, you haven’t seen that many girls cooped up here. Just watch, you’ll fall in love with Lyanna Stark within the hour and forget all this nonsense.”  
Her levity cuts like a knife. She never takes him seriously. He stands, angrily, choking back tears.

“I will make you see that I am serious, Cat, even if I have to kill a dozen knights to do it.”

She is not paying any attention to his declaration though. Horses can be seen approaching and her gaze is transfixed on the sight. When she turns back around her tone is condescending and consolatory. Petyr wishes he had never been born.

“Come, let us not fight, foster brother. The guests have arrived and we must go greet then and I will be wretched if you are so unhappy.”

“Then take my misery away. Be my love and none will be more joyous.”

“Stop it Petyr. Honestly, have you no sense of decency or decorum?”

She leaves in a huff and Petyr feels like even the servants cannot be brought so low. He cannot bring himself to go downstairs to meet the cause of his further misery so he escapes through the back gate to go wallow alone under the willow trees. He thinks that maybe he will run away and kill himself and then Cat will be sorry for being so cruel.

Lysa finds him, of course, and he is forced to go to dinner. The main dais is over full so he is pushed down to the next and has to crane his neck to see Cat laughing at some boneheaded remark that Brandon Stark has made. He cannot hear there conversation, but the hulking northerner can’t possibly have anything witty to say. He is comforted at least to see that the younger son looks no more pleased to be here than Petyr. Still it is a small grace in a sea of insults.

After dinner, Cat introduces him to Lyanna Stark as if he had especially enquired after her. If he is perfectly honest, the girl is pleasing enough but it raises bile in his throat that Cat has so little value of his affection that she wishes to distract it from her.

Cat herself spends the visit on the arm of the Stark heir, much to both fathers’ evident pleasure and Petyr has a hard time holding his composure and keeping to his task of entertaining the Lady Lyanna. He is powerless to do anything and Cat will not meet his eye. Time drags and races at alternating intervals and neither gives him any sort of peace.

He is not surprised when the betrothal is announced, but that does not make it smart less. He knows he is not a grand lord like Brandon Stark will be but he loves Cat more than anyone else ever could and he cannot stand to stand idly by. That night he makes his final entreaty.

Everyone has retired for the night when Petyr keeps to her chambers. Cat is sitting by the window, a pensive expression on her face.

“That is not the look of someone with joyful news.”

Petyr! What are you doing here? It isn’t proper.”

“The hell with proper. I’m being eaten up from the inside, Cat. I can’t sleep and every minute is a living hell knowing that you are to be bound to that brute. My heart cannot bear it. I cannot live without you at my side so Cat, my love, if you will not have me please just cut my heart out and put me out of my misery.”

“You know I am marrying Brandon Stark, Petyr. Even if I did love you I couldn’t change that. This marriage is too important to both of our families and to the kingdom.”

“You aren’t a whore to be bought and sold. Can’t you see that it is wrong to let yourself be sold?”

“No one is making me marry Brandon. He’s a good man and I am glad to do it. And I don’t love you, Petyr, not like that. You’ll see someday that this was all for the best and we’ll laugh over these childish hysterics. Please Petyr, go now. I cannot stomach another scene.”

With that she turns away and will not look at him. He places his hand on her shoulder but she pushes it off and at last he lets out a sob and bolts from her room towards his own, deep in his own suffering and misery.

One of the kitchen maids, who are fond of him, brings him some wine and he drinks it miserably, thinking on ways to die or make the world suffer for the wrongs it has done him. He goes to bed in a haze of dejection and looming intoxication.

He pays no attention to the door opening until he feels the heat of smooth flesh against him and a flash of auburn hair. It is her. She has relented and given in to the truth of their love. Joy springs up in his chest ever and he knows that it is not so. The hair is not as bright; the waist and hips forms less of a curve. Lysa has been trying to gain his attention almost as long as she’s sought Cat’s and the rational part of him knows that it is she and not his beloved who sinks into his embrace. But it is so close, and he needs it to be Cat. He needs her to love him, to give him strength to keep on fighting.

She can’t marry Brandon; she can’t. No she loves him, of course, and now they will run off together across the sea. All the coldness has really just been her way of trying to hide her true feelings out of concern for her father and station. Love such as theirs is the stuff of legends though. It cannot be ignored or halted.

Feverish kisses and skin sliding against skin. He has never had his way with the servant girls, though many were willing. His love is too all encompassing.

“I need you.”

“I’m yours forever.”

In the morning is empty bed is harsh and Brandon’s proprietary stare at breakfast is more than he can bear. He will fight for his love, even if she will not. He clears his throat as he approaches them.

“Brandon Stark, I challenge you to a duel for the hand of Catelyn Tully.”

Brandon, the oaf, looks incredulously down at him, but he will not back down. He demands to be taken seriously and not like a child who doesn’t know what is best for him.


End file.
